


Aromantic at Heart

by jowritesthings



Series: Sanders Sides One-Shot Collection [8]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (there's a zombie bird that's it lmao), Aromantic Character, Aromantic Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Asexual Character, Asexual Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brothers, Canon Universe, Coming Out, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders-centric, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders is a Sweetheart, Fluff, Gen, Good Sibling Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Light Angst, Like, Mild Gore, One Shot, Platonic Relationships, Swearing, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, background intrulogical mentions, very very very mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25912282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jowritesthings/pseuds/jowritesthings
Summary: Roman has always been a romantic at heart. Or, wait.*Remus comes out to Roman, prompting some self-revelations on Roman’s part, too.*I own nothing. I am not in any way associated with Thomas Sanders or Sanders Sides. I merely wrote the plot and the story. Do not copy or repost to other websites or other places.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Series: Sanders Sides One-Shot Collection [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760926
Comments: 14
Kudos: 98





	Aromantic at Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse me sir but this is my emotional support aro!Roman and ace!Remus
> 
> Warnings: swearing, mild gore/violence (idk there’s a zombie bird bc Remus), slight internalized arophobia (but it gets worked out), sex mention (nothing graphic)

“Oi. Gryffin _whore_.”

Roman looks up from his work to see an odd sight.

Remus, of all sides, stands in front of him, which on its own wouldn’t be particularly out-of-the-ordinary, but he looks uncharacteristically nervous. He rocks slightly in place, fiddling with a—dear lord, please let that be a stuffed animal and not an _actual_ dead bird.

Just what Roman needed today to interrupt his very busy, very important job creating. Great.

“What is it, Remus?” Roman asks as politely as he can, since Patton has been getting on his case about being nicer to his twin lately for some reason. He sets his glittery red pen down on the dining table and prays he’s not about to get any disturbing facts spewed at him.

“I wanna tell you something, oh _dearest_ brother of mine.” Remus bares his teeth, and there really are no other words to describe it. It’s more the snarl of a trapped animal than a true smile—yet despite this, Roman can’t help but feel somewhat like he’s the cornered one.

Roman grits his teeth in turn. “That’s fine, Moby _Sick_. Logan said it’s best to let thoughts run their course and wear themselves out, right? Just spit it out.” Intrusive thoughts and intrusive thots alike, he thinks to himself.

“Yeah yeah yeah, Romaniac,” Remus brushes him off. The bird falls out of his hands and—oh, good, it’s still alive. Or, wait, no. A live bird’s eyes wouldn’t look like that. A live bird wouldn’t have a tongue sticking out like that. A live bird’s wings wouldn’t bend at that angle.

The zombie?—undead?—the alive-but-not-quite bird lets out a choked trilling noise, slowly flapping off a ways before vanishing in midair. Remus watches it go.

Then he falls silent.

The twins stew in that silence for a moment or two before Roman finally caves in, breaking it.

“Well?” he demands imperiously. “Are you going to tell me or not?” What’s that phrase Virgil likes to use? “It’s like a band-aid, just rip it off already.” Roman rolls his eyes. “If you’re going to put visions of severed eyeballs dancing in my head, go on and get it over with.”

“Not this time, but that _is_ a good idea!” Remus cackles. “I’ll have to remember that tonight when Thomas tries to go to bed.”

Aww, _shiii_ —

But Roman’s irritation at himself for inspiring such thoughts falls onto a back burner as he takes in the surprisingly lucid, surprisingly pensive, surprisingly _anxious_ expression on his brother’s face.

It’s almost like Remus is...actually worried about what Roman will think of whatever thing he supposedly has to say.

Oh, sweet Persephone’s pomegranate seeds.

Roman isn’t like Patton—he’s not good at comforting. He isn’t like Logan—he can’t logic away his brother’s...weirdness. He isn’t like Virgil—he doesn’t know how to deal with anxieties. He isn’t like Janus—he doesn’t know his brother as well as perhaps he ought. He doesn’t know how to deal with this. He doesn’t know what to do.

“Do you need...should I go get De—erm, Janus? Or Logan? Or Patton?” Roman fumbles out, stolidly looking away from the duke as he half-stands.

“No. No!” Remus rushes out. “This is something I want to tell you.”

Roman looks up in surprise, falling back down in his chair with a soft thump. Remus never has anything to say to him specifically, unless it’s meant to cause terrible mental pictures and torment him the rest of the day. Because...well, Roman has never had anything to say to Remus specifically, either.

“I’m asexual!” Remus practically shouts, yanking Roman out of his thoughts.

Roman blinks. Thinks. Processes.

Then—

“Wait, what?” He gapes at Remus.

“I don’t have sexy feelings for anyone,” Remus bites out, his expression turning bitter. “Yeah, yeah, that’s weird, huh? Being intrusive thoughts and dark creativity and not liking wild freaky kinky sex?” He rolls his eyes, visibly gagging on his next words. “And yeah, I have—mushy gushy lovey-dovey feelings for Logan. I know that’s your department, but, well.” His eyes are bright, manic as he wildly gestures around. “You don’t hold a monopoly on _feelings_ and disgusting shit like that, apparently.”

“No, no, I—” Roman fumbles around for an answer, still utterly bewildered. “It’s not—there’s nothing wrong with being ace, there’s nothing wrong with _you_ being ace, it’s just—” He pauses as Remus’ words finally sink in. “Wait, you guys can actually feel attraction?”

This time it is Remus’ turn to pause and stare, his brain working to understand what Roman is talking about.

“Are you—” Remus laughs, hysterical. “Are you saying that you _don’t_?”

“I—” Roman flounders, searching for the right words. It is altogether quite possible that he is on the brink of figuring something out about himself, and he isn’t too sure that he likes the idea of that something.

“I’ve never felt—I thought—I thought that attraction was a humans-only thing!” he defends himself. “We’re just a part of Thomas, just pieces of him. I didn’t think we could—I never tried—I don’t feel—” Roman looks at his brother, eyes wide and desperate. “It’s because I’m just a part of Thomas, right? It has to be because I’m a facet of his personality.” He swallows thickly. “...Right?”

Only...only all of a sudden, it makes all too much sense that they are actually capable of feeling that. He’s never really thought about it before, but the sides all feel their own emotions. They feel Thomas’ emotions. They all feel love for Thomas’ parents, love for Thomas’ family, love for Thomas’ friends, love for each other. So why wouldn’t they feel romantic love, too, if they can feel platonic and familial? Why wouldn’t _Roman_?

_(Unless....)_

Remus looks at him with something Roman has never seen in his eyes before—pity. But beyond than that, he sees _understanding_.

“I’m not the best person to talk about this gobbledygook with, but...nah. It’s not that.” Remus clears his throat—a hacking, wet cough that honestly sounds quite painful. “You should talk to Deedee about it sometime—he’s demisexual. Or Patty-cake—this _is_ his area of expertise.”

“Oh.” Roman looks down at the table and the papers in front of him, finding that they look oddly blurry. “Oh,” he repeats in a smaller voice.

“Oh, fuck,” Remus curses, and suddenly an awkward hand is at Roman’s back. “Shit, I’m not—uh. Not good at goopy things.” He pauses. “...You good, Ro-ro?”

“Does this mean I’m...broken?” Roman asks quietly. He brings a shaky hand up to his face, searching and scanning through every memory, every thought, every feeling he’s ever had. He digs and he looks for something he never thought could be there, something he never considered could be there, something he’s now being told _could’ve_ been there, and yet still it _isn’t_.

“Is that why none of Thomas’ relationships ever last?” he realizes suddenly, and the thought is like a blow to the stomach. Somehow that thought makes him feel even shittier. If his inadequacy is affecting his manifester.... “Is it because I’m not doing my job properly? I’m supposed to be his passion, but if I’m defective...is it all my fault?”

The hand on Roman’s back hesitantly begins to move in circles. Remus’ nails are really too long and sharp for it to feel as soothing as it is perhaps intended, but Roman appreciates the gesture nevertheless.

“Look, I—” Remus begins haltingly. He stops, clears his throat with that hacking cough again, continues. “I guess I can understand what you’re going through. I didn’t realize it at first, either. That what I—ew, that what I _felt_ was different from Thomas.”

“Okay,” Roman sniffles.

“Shit, how did Janny explain it,” Remus mutters to himself. “Look, we are Thomas, and Thomas is us. But Thomas knows and feels things that we don’t. We know and feel things that Thomas doesn’t. Like, I don’t get sexy feelings for anyone. Thomas...well.” He snickers. “If you don’t experience romancey feelings for others yourself, so what?”

Remus’ hand retracts, and as uncomfortable as that sweaty, sticky palm with its too-sharp fingernails had felt, Roman wishes that touch would return.

“I thought you would laugh at me,” Remus admits quietly, still hovering behind Roman’s shoulder. “Since I’m the one who gets ’n gives all those kinky fucked-up thoughts, but I don’t actually want to do any of them myself.”

“Never!” Roman vows. “I wouldn’t laugh at you.” He freezes, thinking of the past. “Not for—not for that,” he tacks on lamely, and thinks that maybe it’s time to stop laughing so much at Remus for other reasons, too.

“Then why would you get mad at yourself for being as you are?” Remus asks plainly, and well, _shit_. Now Roman _really_ can’t think of him as the evil or lesser twin anymore. Not when he’s acting like this, not when he’s making more sense than Roman himself is.

“So...would that make me asexual too, then?” he asks hesitantly.

Remus moves out from behind him, perching on the back of the sofa. “Sure, if ya want to use that label.” He shrugs fluidly, and the zombie bird appears out of nowhere once more, landing on his head and roosting in his rat’s nest of hair. “Aromantic might suit you better, though, if you dunno how you feel about getting down and dirty with others yet.”

“Aromantic,” Roman tries out softly. He strengthens his voice. “Aromantic. I....” He looks up at Remus, and a small smile slowly starts to make its way across his face. The smile echoes itself on Remus’ face—a truce between brothers, fragile, although Roman thinks it’ll hold strong. “I do believe I can get behind that.”

“Cool!” Remus chirps, and summons a small raincloud of goo to shower down on the two of them, effectively ruining the papers Roman previously had been working on. “So no more pity party? No more pitter-patter-y rainy gloom?”

Roman laughs wetly. “Yeah, no more pity party,” he agrees, swiping smelly green slime out of his face. And for once, he doesn’t even mind that Remus has found yet another way to ruin his precious hair. Maybe his brother isn’t quite as annoying as he’d thought.

“Lit!” Remus claps his hands excitedly, and with a loud farting noise, the raincloud explodes, sending slime hurtling everywhere before disappearing. “So if we’ve solved all of your existential crises, can I go make out with my Logie-bogie now?”

“Ew! I don’t need to know what you and that nerd get up to,” Roman shoots back, scandalized.

“Which is exactly why I’m gonna tell you all the sordid details.” Remus grins mischievously, and nope, never mind, he’s definitely annoying after all.

“No!” Roman shrieks, shoving at Remus, but he’s laughing as he does. He throws his beloved glitter pens at his brother to get him to back off.

“See, there’s this thing that people do!” Remus taunts, hands on his hips as he skips backwards. “If they wanna!” He sticks out his tongue, artfully dodging the barrage of writing utensils. “They suck face! And there’s _tongues_ —”

Roman gags. He bursts out into a loud, panicked rendition of ‘Into the Unknown’ in an attempt to drown out his brother’s lewd words and noises, and _oh_ , why haven’t he and Remus gotten along over the years? This is fun. This is...nice.

This is love.

Even if it isn’t romantic—even if what Roman feels for the others in his life isn’t romantic. It’s still love. It isn’t any lesser. The exhilarating feeling of performing onstage with Thomas, the sheepish smiles shared when he burns cookies with Patton, the witty banter he exchanges with Virgil, the furious analysis of Broadway shows he does with Logan, the elegant waltzes he dances with Janus, the silly moments like these with Remus. It’s love, it’s happiness, it’s _good_.

Sure, so maybe Roman is aromantic. Maybe he doesn’t fall in love in a romantic sense. But there are plenty of other ways to love, and plenty of other ways to feel, and he’s been doing them all along, hasn’t he?

And maybe, he thinks as he fondly chases his brother up the stairs, maybe there’s more ways to learn out there too.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so now this is two Roman-centric one-shots I've written in a row. Which isn't really a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice right
> 
> (No it's not. Weasley is king is overrated. Roman is prince. Roman rules over our hearts. Platonically, of course.)
> 
> Come screech at me in the comments or on [Tumblrrr](https://jowritesthingss.tumblr.com/) guys I have no friends and All The Boredom.


End file.
